


Exempt

by those_painted_wings



Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Generation One
Genre: Character Death, Gen, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-29
Updated: 2013-03-29
Packaged: 2017-12-06 21:48:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/740517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/those_painted_wings/pseuds/those_painted_wings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Red Alert believes that, even in war, some things are sacred.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Exempt

Red Alert kept many secrets. As a security mech, he saw things no one wanted seen – and for the most part he allowed them to remain secret, for so long as it hurts no one a mech's business is his own. Since most of the Decepticons' secrets were plots to destroy the Autobots, he considered them exempt from the rule – except for one.

The day had seen another successful battle. No one died; no one was seriously injured, and there was plenty of energon for all. Some of the Autobots had a party. The more conservative of them tucked themselves away for a quiet night off. And one bot in particular – one paranoid security bot – went back to the battlefield, as was his custom, to check for anything that either side, but especially the 'Cons, might have left behind.

In truth, his habit was less to satisfy his own paranoia and more to simply give himself a little peace. The 'Cons and Autobots were equally careful not to leave anything useful behind. It was the empty battlefield that Red Alert found soothing – a sign that all fighting must, in the end, cease. He walked along the edges of the destruction, picking his way around pieces of far flung rubble and a few scattered craters. It was as he skirted the outer perimeter of the power plant they had been defending that he saw something he should theoretically have been expecting: the outline of another bot. It was no Autobot – there was no Autobot that big who didn't use ident pings. It had to be a Decepticon.

Red Alert's first impulse was, of course, to shoot. But the Decepticon didn't know he was there, and information gathering was his ultimate priority. He had no backup, and his weapons wouldn't be sufficient to offline even the most insignificant of Decepticon 'grounders' in one go. So instead of attacking, Red Alert slunk closer, trying to determine what the 'Con was doing here.

The power plant had been built largely of cement, and what hadn't been reduced to large chunks of rubble seemed to be stable, though much of one wall was gone. Red Alert circled back, entering by another way. He ended up crouched in a doorway, hidden in the heavy, sharp shadows caused by the half-light of sunset shining through the missing wall. The floor was littered with debris. On the far side of the room, the Decepticon stood near the wall, holding – no, cradling – something in his arms.

The Decepticon, Red Alert now realized, was Soundwave. In his arms... it was one of his cassettes. One of the tiny flyer-frames, Buzzsaw. And while the cassettes had never registered on sensors – it was why they were such good spies – Red Alert was certain that this one was dead.

But the most shocking thing about the scene was this: Soundwave, who seldom made any noise and never expressed emotion at all, was keening softly.

Red Alert watched for only a moment before he turned around and left. The scene was too intimate, not something he wanted or needed to see. It was war, yes, and both Creations and Creators died – had died – would die. And Soundwave was a Decepticon, and his cassettes were apparently a vulnerability to the seemingly invulnerable mech. But that information, while potentially tactically valuable, wasn't something Red Alert could bring himself to use against even a 'Con.  
He would keep his silence and leave Soundwave's grief, like every Autobot's personal secrets, private.

**Author's Note:**

> A prompt from the TF Bunny Farm:  
> Cradling his child Soundwave mourns the loss of one of his creations. Red Alert just can't bring himself to shoot the grieving mech, so walks away.


End file.
